Dancing with Dementors
by pannychis
Summary: Pani just wants to party. But she has a Destiny, too, and if that means winning over Wizarding society, seducing Death Eaters, becoming star reporter at the Daily Prophet, and outwitting the Dark Lord, and maybe even falling in love! Please R&R!


A/N: Azkabn and all is, like, JKRowlings. But my OC is all mine! If she wants to go in your story I know better than to try to stop her, though.*giggle* This is my first long fanfic i tried to write. Please tell me what you think!  
  
Chapter 1: Charon  
  
The gray sky reflects down on gray water, the only break in the monoty the looming stone pile of the prison on its dark island. Even the pilotless boat, gray also with age and neglect, leaves only a trail of dead-silver ripples behind. I dip the tips of my long fingers in the water and watch as they turn corpse-white under the cold sea, and I wonder if all this mood lighting is *really* necessary.  
  
What it really needs is some color. I look down at the rippled reflection of my face in the water: my eyes have gone the same flat shade as the sky; my raven-black hair is dulled, the blue highlights muted; my designer fuschia robes dulled to maroon in this slack light. Even my crystal earrings, bespelled to gather and scatter any energy that reaches them, have lost their trace of shine.  
  
The only sound is the tetchy slap of waves against the side of the boat and beside me, on the splintery seat, my trusty blue Dwimnwis quill automatically recording my idle musings on a slowly rolling strip of parchment. I'm here, taking the uniquely depressing boat ride out to Azkaban Prison, on assignment as a reporter for the Daily Prophet; a plum assignment, indeed, to interview Lucius Malfoy, newly imprisoned after being caught in the Department of Mysteries. Rumor has it that he may have been a Death Eater . . . that the Dark Lord, the Nameless, was there too. The trial is not for another week; only the Prophet's influence and the support of his wife, the divine Narcissa, gained us permission to do this interview at all.  
  
The interview will be the difficult part-- Uncle Luke never liked me much (and the 'Uncle' title was only honorary anyway--) and I doubt he'll be in a mood to talk to the press after ten days in Azkaban. I will have to work hard for every word I get out of him, I'm sure. Even with the Dementors off playing Nazgul to the Anagram Nerd's Sauron, the island fortress is not a cheerful place: the long centuries of soul-destroying despair have left their own mark behind.   
  
While I'm here, I might as well take notes for an article on the changes at Azkaban in the past few months; I can sell that to one of the glossies, probably, and I may need to, if the Lucius interview tanks; my reputation isn't well established yet on this side of the pond. Now, in America . . . in America I have maybe too *much* reputation.  
  
The boat grounds itself silently on the mortared shore with a scrape, and I step out, the sole of my black leather boot cruching against a flake of slivered stone. Other than that, it's still silent. I had somehow expected a welcoming committee here now, some sort of guard or supervisor, but the island is empty and still as only a place sucked dry by Dementors can be. Of course, it makes sense on reflection: they could hardly have had living attendants working here when the Dementors were, and I can't imagine the Dementors spooning gruel or emptying pots. Whatever spells were up then to take care of the day-to-day chores would still be active, and the new temporary security spells; still, it seems even crueller to leave these prisoners utterly alone, lock them away where one need not even think about them-- perhaps indeed a suitable symbol of the British wizard's tendency to simply hide anything he doesn't like, so he doesn't have to look at it and doesn't have to deal with it. Make the unpleasant unobtrusive-- like the spell that noiselessly propelled the boat over the sea to the fortress island, and is now sending it back across the water, leaving me and my parchment stranded here.  
  
No choice then. Time to stop woolgathering and go do my job.  
  
The gates of Azkaban are guarded only by two stone wyverns, glaring balefully from either side of a doorless break in the faceless wall. On the stone pavement between them is etched a magic circle, and I step in. The set-up is similar to the guest's entry at the Ministry: I state my name and purpose, and a silver badge falls out of the sky into my hand, neatly labelled, and spelled to let me go only those places I will need to go in order to do my stated job. The wyverns nod at me and I step through. I'm inside Azkaban now, and the gray purgatory silence is ended.  
  
Silver goes *so* badly with my complexion.  
  
A/N: More to come! So what do you think?? 


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